Buy, But Do Not Use

An all new smoking ban goes into effect today in Calabasas, California.

I used to smoke, but kicked the habit January 1, 1986, one of the very few new years resolution I ever kept.

Like millions of my peers, I started smoking because it was promoted everywhere... in newspapers, magazines, on television and in movies as being hip, cool, the "in" thing that the beautiful people did.

There were no health hazards mentioned by anybody, anywhere.

I started smoking while in the Navy, and at the time, a carton of Lucky Strikes was less three dollars. When the ship pulled out for deployment, a carton of Luckies dropped to ninety cents a carton at the ship's store just a soon as we passed the three-mile limit.

With all that good-times advertising for tobacco, naturally smoking increased dramatically. Government at all levels -- always on the lookout for more revenue -- started taxing the living hell out of tobacco products. Since users become addicted to tobacco, the tax income was guaranteed, no matter at what level of taxation.

Compare today's cost for a pack of name-brand smokes -- over $4.00 in many places -- to the thirty cents I paid for a pack, or nine cents a pack while at sea. Most of that increase is taxes that government at every level depends on. Eliminate tobacco taxes and government, from local to national, would scream bloody murder.

So, governments of all stripes are addicted to tobacco, just as millions of users are.

If some government entity wants to outlaw smoking, they should first eliminate all tobacco tax revenue and thus demonstrate they too, can kick the habit, before they start slamming citizens who are buying -- and using -- a completely legal product.

And, like I said, I don't smoke, but this is not a smoking issue anyway. It's all about government wanting citizens to buy tobacco products for the tax revenue, but at the same time, outlawing it's use and generating outlandish fines for those people who still smoke.